Gaslight
It was only when the light in the room began to fade that I looked up and saw the gas-mantle in its round globe. and a little while passed before I realised that it was not " town " gas but gas brought in a cylinder from one of the firms regularly supplying farms and country cottages. " The cylinder's running out," said the farmer, "so we'll have the oil-lamp." Someone went through the kitchen to a cupboard and brought out the oil-lamp, a tall-funnelled lamp of the kind I remember so well from my childhood. Soon we were sitting in the glaring white light of the paraffin burner. In a few years, perhaps, electricity will come to such farms as the one I was visiting. It already crosses the hill a mile away, but the cost of connection is too high, I am told. My eyes grew used to the new light after a while, but I felt very unsure when I went out into the darkness a little later. The farmer's wife amused me with her remark that she kept the oil- lamp in case the gas ran out and candles in case the oil ran out. After that, she said. it was a case of firelight or bed, but she tried to keep supplies balanced.
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